James Fenimore Cooper: The Deerslayer

22. Chapter XXII. (continued)

"Ah! if this could be so, Hetty, then, indeed, I could now be a thousand times happier in these woods, than in the settlements. Once I did not feel thus, but now I do. Yet where is the man to turn this beautiful place into such a garden of Eden for us?"

"Harry March loves you, sister," returned poor Hetty, unconsciously picking the bark off the canoe as she spoke. "He would be glad to be your husband, I'm sure, and a stouter and a braver youth is not to be met with the whole country round."

"Harry March and I understand each other, and no more need be said about him. There is one - but no matter. It is all in the hands of providence, and we must shortly come to some conclusion about our future manner of living. Remain here - that is, remain here, alone, we cannot - and perhaps no occasion will ever offer for remaining in the manner you think of. It is time, too, Hetty, we should learn all we can concerning our relations and family. It is not probable we are altogether without relations, and they may be glad to see us. The old chest is now our property, and we have a right to look into it, and learn all we can by what it holds. Mother was so very different from Thomas Hutter, that, now I know we are not his children, I burn with a desire to know whose children we can be. There are papers in that chest, I am certain, and those papers may tell us all about our parents and natural friends."

"Well, Judith, you know best, for you are cleverer than common, mother always said, and I am only half-witted. Now father and mother are dead, I don't much care for any relation but you, and don't think I could love them I never saw, as well as I ought. If you don't like to marry Hurry, I don't see who you can choose for a husband, and then I fear we shall have to quit the lake, after all."

"What do you think of Deerslayer, Hetty?" asked Judith, bending forward like her unsophisticated sister, and endeavoring to conceal her embarrassment in a similar manner. "Would he not make a brother-in-law to your liking?"